


Induction

by OverSupport



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: A bit of Third Person Omniscient, Also No Relationships ATM, Everyone knows 76 is Morrison, Except when there's a dramatic reveal, Gen, Moving POV, My First Fanfic, Original Character(s), POV Third Person Limited, The OC is pretty much Batman, hope it doesn't suck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 18:49:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7695397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OverSupport/pseuds/OverSupport
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike, orphaned at the age of 10 and now 14, had been working as a vigilante to rid his California city of the crime that took his parents' lives.  His life changes as he accepts a message to join Overwatch and is promptly kidnapped by Talon.<br/>He knew he was bound to answer the call of Overwatch at some point.  He just didn't know it would cause so much trouble.</p><p>(Concept: I like making my own Overwatch heroes, so I decided to base a fanfic on one along with throwing in a bunch of headcanons on the existing heroes.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first fanfic I've written. I had a story in my head with some original characters, and I decided I had to actually type it. Obviously, this isn't going to be perfect. I have a couple of chapters in the works, but I think I'm going to stop working on this for a while. I think I need to get used to writing about existing characters (Overwatch and not) before I do original characters.
> 
> Anyways, I'll finish up and post the third chapter if this gets popular or if anyone is actually waiting for it, but otherwise I'll just do shorts here and there.
> 
> Edit: Removed "An Overwatch Story" from the title. I don't know why I put it there.

When he woke up, he felt the cool steel of a table behind him.  Glancing around, he noted that the room looked like some sort of operating area.  _Where am I?_ , he wondered.  His eyes widened.  _Who am I? Who_ am _I? Oh God,  why can’t I remember, oh fu-_

 

The memories came rushing back.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Michael Walker’s parents had always told him of the Omnic Crisis.  They told him of the death and destruction that followed, and that the world was still busy putting itself back together.  That meant he had to be careful.  The police didn’t have time to deal with actual criminals when they were too busy breaking up peaceful protests for Omnic rights, after all.  It didn’t help that there were plenty of expensive things for the thieves and robbers to take.  They were in California, after all.

 

Because of this, Mike just dealt with it.  He lived his life, stayed away from dark alleys, and kept away from the kids thinking that no cops meant they could do whatever they want.  He grew up teaching himself, mainly because the schooling system wasn’t good for anything with the funding it got.  His parents didn’t know it, nor did anyone else, but Mike was somewhat of a genius.  They didn’t know that by the age of seven, he had a good enough understanding of aerodynamics and anti-grav engines to build a VTOL out of junkyard scrap. 

 

No, they thought he was just a kid who stayed out of trouble well enough and got good grades.  They planned to send him to a community college.  They planned for him to take a minimum wage job that could hopefully support the family when they could no longer work.  But those plans didn’t account for the people on the streets of their city.  Their plans weren’t made to account for shotgun pellets lodged in both of them by some petty robber dressed in black.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When the funerals were over, Mike went back home in a daze.  As he sat on his bed, the emotions caught up.  _They’re gone, and I couldn’t save them_.  He clenched the sheets, blinking the tears out of his eyes.  _They’re gone, and there’s nothing I did to try save them._   He looked up, rephrasing his thoughts.  _There’s nothing I could’ve done to save them. H_ e stood, walked to his window, and gazed out at the dingy city from his dingy apartment.  _But I can save others._

 

By twelve in the night, he had drawn the initial sketches for a suit.  It looked like a ridiculous idea, but it was completely feasible for crime fighting.  Nonlethal weapons, with mobility and armor to avoid being killed.   By two he had refined them to their final form, a sleek suit made from materials seemingly unreachable to a ten-year-old.  By four, he had acquired or made all of said materials.  At seven in the morning, he stood back to admire how the kevlar-carbon and aluminum had come together into an imposing black suit of armor.  He blinked, clearing his vision enough to actually see.  It wasn’t anything amazing, but it was good enough that it didn’t look homemade.

 

After a few hours of sleep, Mike had coded the software to operate everything on the suit.  He booted it up, and a projector whirred to life of the side of his head, projecting the full system’s statistics.  He ran a diagnostic, and every switch was working.  _Good, considering I was half-asleep when I wired it._   The suit then adjusted to its wearer, pulling up the extra inch or two of fabric back under the light armored plates.  Once the sun went down, he would take his first flight without a sound.  He figured that Wraith sounded a bit too aggressive for the alias of a vigilante.  Gliding through the air on a system of electric jets, he decided that Ghost sounded right.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The vigilante work had actually been pretty good for him.  During the four years, in which his hair had darkened a bit from its bright blond color, he had went from somewhat lanky to respectably muscled for a teenager.  His brain had also adjusted to think fast enough to process the content it absorbed like a sponge quite quickly.  A sharp pain in his head interrupted his thoughts for a second.  _But flying around fighting crime isn’t exactly great for hiding from, say, Talon._

 

“What is your meaning?”

 

The Talon merc kept yelling slight variations of this in Mike’s ear as a screen flashed messages and shapes in bright colors across his vision, while he felt something being pumped into his right arm.  He assumed he’d understand the question once he was brainwashed.  _But for now,_ he thought, _please shut the fuck up_.  He really wanted to say that aloud, but gathered his thoughts.  _That’ll just get me socked in the face… Or worse_.  He didn’t bother looking for an escape route, as he was pretty well tied down.  Nothing seemed to have any chance of making this better, until a thought forced its way into his busy head.

 

_What do they want to hear?_

 

The man kept yelling in his ear.

 

_What do I say to make them think-_

A doctor took notes near the table.

 

_-That they’ve succeeded?_

Messages flashed from above.

 

_What-_

 

Yelling.

_Do-_

 

Murmuring in the back of the room.

_I-_

 

Messages flashing and sound blaring constantly overhead, slowly working their way into his mind and-

_Say?_

 

The thought came in the brief moment where the man had paused from yelling and the images were transitioning.  The Talon merc opened his mouth to yell again, but Mike spoke first.

 

“I exist to kill.”

 

The man took a step back, and the doctors and Talon officials alike snapped their heads up.  “I rid the world of vermin, those who cannot possibly understand the true meaning of chaos.  My meaning is disorder!”

 

The last few words raised into a shout.  He had to hide the fact that he was terrified that he had said the wrong thing, that-

 

At once, the needles were extracted and the screen shut off.  _It worked_ , he thought.  _Thank God, it worked!_ His head was clear again, and now he could think.  _And now,_ he added, _they’re fucked._

* * *

 

 

Gabriel Reyes decided he would personally oversee this reconditioning, and (obviously) no one challenged Reaper’s authority.  So he sat in the back of the room, almost invisible in the chaos of the room.  Being half-dead allowed him to keep quite a calm watch in the chaos of the room.  When the kid finally broke, he seemed to be completely under their control.  Still, even as he was escorted out of the room, Reaper _knew_ something wasn’t right. 

 

He walked to Widowmaker’s perch in one of the guard towers.  After he silently entered the room, he almost thought she jumped a bit when he said, “Keep an eye on that one.”, knowing that she was perfectly aware of who he was talking about.

 

She raised an eyebrow and smirked slightly, which Reaper now knew meant that she wanted an explanation.  “I don’t trust him just yet.”


	2. Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike finds his way out of the Talon base.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter still almost always follows Mike, but it branches off a bit more.  
> I'm posting this one now because I won't be able to post for a few days.

Mike tried to act natural as he was led to his quarters carrying his Talon-provided supplies.  He may have been smart, but this was an unpredictable situation.  He had nothing to work off of, but he had to act like a brainwashed Talon recruit without really having any others to base that off of.  Once the Talon escorts left his room, he still didn’t drop the act.   _ There’s about a 99 percent chance this room’s bugged _ , he thought.  So, he decided to look for them.

The video feeds were easy enough to cut off, as it was a bit difficult to hide even the smallest cameras.   _ I’ll just come up with some bullshit excuse for why I disabled them.  _  In the course of about an hour, he had taken out the mini-cams and was just smashing the last audio mic.   _ Now I’m only in one of the most secure bases in the world without cameras in my room _ , he thought, smirking.   _ I guess the odds are in my favor. _

 

* * *

 

 

Winston had looked in Jack’s quarters, but he wasn’t there.  By now, he knew that the only other place he would be was the training range.  After weaving through the Watchpoint, Winston saw the former Overwatch commander firing at a set of targets next to Ana Amari. 

Hey, Ja-”

Soldier: 76 quickly glared at Winston.  Ana simply chuckled to herself and continued firing.

Correcting himself and sighing, Winston continued, “76, we have something that we need to discuss.”

Turning, he replied, “Okay, I’ll be at your office when I finish...”

He trailed off as he slowly realized what Winston was saying. “Did Talon-”

“Yes.  We’re currently looking for a way to get him out.”

Morrison rested his head on his hand, like he always did when he was stressed.   _ It’s a wonder the whole team doesn’t realize it’s him _ , Winston mused.

“It’s no use,” the old soldier replied, shaking his head.  “He’s gone by now.  Just like Amélie...”

Winston pushed up his glasses.  “Actually, according to our sources in the base, they’re suspicious that he’s  _ not _ been truly brainwashed.”

“Well, then, what are we going to do anyways?  Go in with a full assault to extract him?  It’s not like the kid could escape on his own.  He’s fourteen, for God’s sake!”

Winston smirked, which 76 thought looked a bit strange coming from a gorilla.  “You forget this 'kid' was good enough for Talon to capture and attempt to recondition.  It took me half an hour to get into his computer with Overwatch’s most sophisticated software, and I think it’s only because he let me in.”

He realized that none of that would really guarantee his escape, so he added on.  “Plus, he’s a vigilante that made his own personal flight suit.  We need more people like him.”

He turned and padded off, saying, “We’re just getting him a small supply drop.  He’s no doubt rendered most of his room’s bugs inoperable by now, so he should have his best chance of escape by tonight.”

Morrison sighed.  “Fine, go ahead.  Do it.  Just don’t come crying to me when Widowmaker takes his head off.”

 

* * *

 

 

The Talon agents monitoring him didn’t really think much of the room’s bugs being systematically destroyed.  Widowmaker had disabled her room’s bugs within five minutes.  It wasn’t hard to set up an invisible VPN on his Talon-monitored PC.  After that, it was a breeze to get into the network of the base.  By the time darkness fell, he knew more about most of the people on the base than they did about themselves.  He had processed the information through a program he had designed to determine the approximate location of each person at any point in time.  He linked this info to his wrist-mounted display, which he had found in his room and quickly untapped from Talon’s network.

_ The problem now _ , he thought,  _ is getting that sniper off my ass _ .  He knew that Reaper had stationed Widowmaker to watch him.  She also probably knew he had hacked the system.   _ Hell, the only reason I’m not dead is because she wants to make sure she gets a clear shot _ .  On that thought, he slid his dresser to block the small window on the front of his room.  Mike had a long night ahead of him.  He knew that his best and only chance to get out was soon to slip through his fingers if he didn’t act.

Lucky for Mike, Widowmaker and Reaper were the only ones that knew of his true condition.  They were too overconfident of their abilities to tell the rest of the base, and didn’t want interference from Talon grunts.  If he did this quietly, he would only have two people to deal with.  Problem was, Talon was too smart to provide him with weapons quite yet, except the small shock-gun concealed in the right arm of his suit.  The good thing was the small package slipped through the mail slot on his door.   _ It was definitely smart to get associated with Overwatch _ , he thought.  He opened the package and looked at his loot.  As he picked up the hard-light multitool and silenced pistols, he smiled.  It didn’t look like much, but it was more than enough to get out.

 

* * *

 

 

Widowmaker had been watching the new operative’s room all day and half of the night.   _ This “Ghost” had better show up soon.   _ Her heart was slowed to a lethargic pace, preventing almost all emotion.  That didn’t mean that this tediously long stakeout wasn’t wearing her thin.   _ I could have easily killed you much earlier.   _ The doorknob to his room twisted, and she focused her sight right where his head would appear as he opened the door.   _ But it wouldn’t have been as satisfying as this. _  Smiling at the thought, she whispered, “ _ Personne n'échappe à mon regard… _ ”

The door opened, and her finger twitched on the trigger.  But she didn’t fire.  There was nothing to fire  _ at _ as the door slowly swung open.  There was, however, a hole in the wall of the room.   _ And probably _ , she thought,  _ a ghost moving through the shadows.  Moving towards me. _  She stood.   _ But I will be ready.   _ Her feet clicked quietly on the floor as she moved to a new position.  She stopped when she passed her room, and poured a glass of wine.  Either she or that boy was going to die tonight, and only fate knew who would live.  As she held the glass in her hand, she thought,   _ À la vie, à la mort. _

 

* * *

 

 

Mike hadn’t exactly planned for a brooding Reaper to be walking the halls, but he also wasn’t exactly surprised.

His room escape worked well.  It took a while to understand all that the multitool had to offer, but when he did, it was probably more effective than all of the tools he had used in his life combined.   _ I’m definitely keeping this _ , he thought as he cut through his room’s wall with fifty seconds left before the hard-light contraption on his door slowly opened it.  The agent in the room he was cutting into had been dealt with, as the small hole he had drilled into his wall was more than enough to aim a pistol into the room.  The killing didn’t bother him anymore.  He’d had to do it, albeit on rare occasions, as the  _ Ghost _ , and he had stopped feeling guilty a while ago, considering he had saved many more lives by pulling a trigger once.

A few walls later, and he heard his doorknob turn faintly.  He silently crept out of the room he was in, as no guards were currently set to patrol the hallway he was in.  He could hear footsteps from about two hallways down.  Checking his monitor, he confirmed his guess.  They were multiple times louder than his own even from that distance.   _ The sound dampers on my boots were definitely a good idea _ .  He could turn them on and off.  When he got behind guards he usually turned the dampers off, as the intimidation factor of those metal boots and his sleek black suit were usually enough to make guards of any kind simply surrender.  Then again, these were Talon guards, so they raised their guns at the first chance.

With the guards now sprawled on the floor in some nicely-placed side rooms, Mike continued up the steps towards Widowmaker’s level until he heard strange sounds coming from above.  He recognized the deep voice of Reaper.  Creeping around the corner, he saw the wraith-like figure in front of a window, he realized, looking at his own reflection.  His mask was in his hand.  He muttered, “What have I become?  What has Angela made me into?”

Mike almost gasped when he looked at the reflection, something that he hadn’t done in a long time.  The figure looked as if every cell in his body had been destroyed and patched together a million times over.  Resisting the temptation to simply jet down the hall, Mike crept through the shadows past Reaper.

 

* * *

 

 

Mike reached the hangar, where he knew that there was an exit from the base.  Jumping to some scaffolding used for repairs next to a large dropship, he kept his head down, but couldn’t spot Widowmaker.  However, he set the hard-light tool to making a scanner to find any enemies and display them on his wrist.  He wasn’t taking any chances after how far he’d got.  While it was being built, he put his back to the sheet metal covering the bare tubing of the scaffolding.  He had more information from one day in this base than Overwatch had gathered in years.   _ This’ll be one hell of a debriefing _ , he thought.  Then, Mike frowned.   _ But what if I don’t want to be in Overwatch, I never really had a choice… _

Then he realized that he did have a choice.  He could have kept closer to the shadows as a vigilante, he could have not let Winston into his computer, he could not have…   _ Oh yeah, _ he thought.   _ Accepted that Overwatch call _ .

 

* * *

 

 

At his home computer, Mike never received much communication.  Spam emails, sometimes one of the few friends he had, but not much else.  When he was notified by his self-designed defense system that his computer was being breached, he was actually quite surprised.  This was the first time that had happened, with how careful he was to keep his identity a secret.  He tracked the IP back to the origin of the hack.  “Not great with computers, are you?”, he mumbled.  Then he found the location was tracked to a small island off of Gibraltar.   _ No, it can’t be _ .  He glanced at the computer name, “Science Machine”.  It was definitely Winston.  In all honesty, he didn’t want anything to do with Overwatch, but he stopped before he closed off the connection.  Maybe he wanted to hear what they had to say.

He felt like an idiot clicking the “Allow Access” button, but he really doubted they wanted to, or even  _ could _ do any damage.  A simple message flashed onto his screen.  On top of an Overwatch logo were the words “Join Overwatch?”, with “Y” and “N” buttons below it.  His hand lingered on his mouse, mind racing.  Slowly, his pointer migrated to the “Y”.   _ I’m going to regret this _ , he thought as he clicked the button.

He did regret it, just a bit sooner than expected.  A message box popped up on his screen, saying, “Just got notification that Talon hijacked the network.  Know your location.  So sorry”.

Within fifteen seconds the hard drives were out of his computer, and within fifty everything he needed was in the storage compartments on his flight suit.  Sixty seconds and the suit was on.  Sixty-five and he felt a slight sting in his neck.  Raising his hand to the origin of the pain, he felt a small dart.  “ _ Ça pique, n'est-ce pas?”   _ The french voice bounced around in his head as he fell to the floor.

 

* * *

 

 

Mike started as the ding signaling the completion of the scanner broke his reveries.  He set it up and started the scan.   _ I guess when I get out of here I need to find a Watchpoint.  I can probably contact Gibraltar from there. _   Another ding showed that all hostiles had been scanned, with awake ones highlighted in red.  He looked at his wrist display.  Widowmaker wasn’t anywhere the scanner could detect.

Hooking the tool onto the side of his suit, he realized he hadn’t done much of an initialization.  He activated the resizing, and the suit fit slightly more snugly as the motors whirred.  He then ran a diagnostic.  “ _ Testing flight systems. _ ”, the computer said into his ear.

“ _ Leg thrusters” _ A tug on his legs. “ _ Check _ ”  As this continued with his arms, backpack, and additional control thrusters, he thought of the many ways this could end.  _ I could peek my head up and instantly be killed, or I could get halfway up the wall only to feel my pack explode as a bullet ruptures through the armored surface. _  The suit started to test hydraulics, and he felt some of his joints involuntarily move, along with storage compartments in the backpack.   _ Maybe I’ll get out of here, away from Reaper and Widowmaker and all of those other Talon assholes.  I could get to Overwatch, but then what?  I’m a social mess, and if I did make any friends they’d probably get blown up within two missions. _  He pushed the thoughts out of his head.   _ The doctor’s supposed to be really good there, they probably won’t all die.  And I can probably stop being a complete social recluse.  _

“ _ Ready to activate _ ”.  Mike stood, and his head was intact.  That was good.  He tapped each control trigger on his hands, ready to control the suit.  He ran and jumped off of the scaffolding, before boosting himself towards a wall on the building.  Using his backpack and arm thrusters to keep him on the wall, running felt almost natural.  He was almost surprised when he heard the first suppressed sniper shot ping off the wall, but it came from far away.  It probably missed because Mike was running at around ten miles per hour on the wall, the hydraulic assists and electric jets helping him along.  He was nearing his target, little by little.  He jumped off of the wall and wove his way over and on top of various Talon aircraft.  He was tired of being constantly watched.   _ That french bitch is taking her last shot tonight. _

 

* * *

 

 

“ _ Merde _ , he’s moving too fast.”

Reaper had shadow-stepped up to Widowmaker’s position when he heard the shots very faintly.  

“Well, then  _ shoot _ faster”  Widowmaker took a moment to glare at Reaper, but looked away as she was almost sure the small amount of fear she  _ could _ feel was showing on her face.

“Just go back to your brooding, Reaper, I’ll get him.”  Reyes grunted before swirling off in a cloud of black smoke.  Widowmaker smiled as the figure neared her position.  He would never know of the Venom Mines she had hidden in various spots around the hanger.    _ Or maybe he did _ , she thought as he shot off of the wall and whipped around to blast the mines to oblivion with his guns.  She raised her rifle at the figure slowly gliding towards her.  She smiled, as she usually did before the perfect kill.  She pictured the graceful fall of the suit as the thrusters failed after its pilot’s death.  Just as she pulled the trigger the suit shot upwards.

 

* * *

 

 

Mike’s suit AI sounded almost relieved as her recommendation to increase the throttle from five percent was finally taken.  The suit shot upwards as the bullet flew by.  As Mike rolled onto the platform Widowmaker was perched on, he heard suppressed rifle fire to his right, bullets either missing or grazing various armor plates of his armor.  As he raised his guns to fire, he did something unexpected to himself or his enemy.  As Widowmaker silently accepted that she wouldn’t escape the clutches of death, Mike tapped a button on the side of his hand, letting loose a barrage of electric shocks from his arms.  Widowmaker slumped to the ground, unconscious.   _ I’m going to regret this _ , he thought, before smirking.   _ Just like I regretted letting Winston onto my computer _ .

He snuck out of the hangar door and into his new life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I managed to bounce around quite a bit between characters in this chapter. 
> 
>  
> 
> Next time, he should finally be getting to Watchpoint: Gibraltar. There will be a lot more normal Overwatch characters. Also, I’m planning to add a few more original characters, though they won’t have as much of a focus as Mike. Just a list of some of the ideas I’ve had: A (sane) Aussie hunter, an Irish engineer, a Scottish swordsman, a Canadian medic(/possible love interest?), a Mexican gunslinger to match McCree.
> 
>  
> 
> Translation: 
> 
> Personne n'échappe à mon regard: No one can escape my sight. (Loosely translated)
> 
> À la vie, à la mort: To life, to death.
> 
> Merde: Shit. (Literally)
> 
>  
> 
> Again, feel free to leave feedback.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, you got this far, so that's good. Please comment and tell me what you think about the story, and definitely tell me if I made a mistake or broke off in the middle of a sentence (I jump around the story when I type).
> 
> Some things I'd like feedback on:  
> -Paragraph length (Should they be shorter, or are they okay?)  
> -Writing Style (Is it detailed enough, or does it gloss over too much?)  
> -Characters (Does Mike seem believable, are the existing characters portrayed correctly?)
> 
> Hope you enjoyed. Check back soon for chapter 2. (I have about 3 extra chapters that I just need to revise)


End file.
